Fatality Off Miami Beach - Florida

[danvolker]

Yesterday a girl died on a charter boat off Miami....depth indicated was in the 30 to 40 foot range, on a boat with 40 divers ( cattleboat size group) ....

• She was found with no mask or bc on, but still wearing weightbelt..on the bottom
• Apparently she was not diving with a buddy, as no one knew she had a problem, no one saw her struggling and drowning.
• Apparently she had insufficient skills to either do a mask clear, or to drop her own weight belt when it was critical for her to do so.
• It might also be apparent that she had no bouyancy skills, or none of this should have been possible....
• A skilled diver...like a good Cave Diver, or a good Dive Instructor, or a good DM, or just a GOOD Diver with only a basic cert--SHOULD HAVE seen a dangerously underskilled and over-tasked diver in the water, and decided to INTERVENE.

INTERVENE "could mean" just keep an eye on her in case she needed help.....it could mean buddy up with her because of your certainty that the "need" for a RESCUE would be forth coming. It could have meant signalling her to ascend, so that you could get her BC inflated, and figure out why she was so negative, and to either fix a dangerous problem, or to get the boat over and invloved in her safety.

Thoughts?

 

[koozemani]

Where was her buddy while she was struggling underwater? At the 30-40' range, I would think that basic skills and a nearby buddy would make any incident at that depth easily remedied. This is definitely sad and should have been preventable.

 

[chillyinCanada]

She had no buoyancy at the surface because she had removed her bcd. You are making a lot of assumptions, so I'll make some too. Since she was also without her mask, I'll assume she'd made it to the surface and in anticipation of boarding, had removed her bc, mask and meant to be waiting her turn to hand up her gear. But because the previous times she'd been diving, it had been with integrated weights, she didn't realize her mistake until it was too late.

If you read DAN's report, look at the percentage of deaths wherein those were found still wearing their weight belts.

 

[Aquabot]

Yesterday a girl died on a charter boat off Miami....depth indicated was in the 30 to 40 foot range, on a boat with 40 divers ( cattleboat size group) :

• She was found with no mask or bc on, but still wearing weightbelt..on the bottom
• Apparently she was not diving with a buddy, as no one knew she had a problem, no one saw her struggling and drowning.
• Apparently she had insufficient skills to either do a mask clear, or to drop her own weight belt when it was critical for her to do so.
• It might also be apparent that she had no bouyancy skills, or none of this should have been possible....
• A skilled diver...like a good Cave Diver, or a good Dive Instructor, or a good DM, or just a GOOD Diver with only a basic cert--SHOULD HAVE seen a dangerously underskilled and over-tasked diver in the water, and decided to INTERVENE.

INTERVENE "could mean" just keep an eye on her in case she needed help.....it could mean buddy up with her because of your certainty that the "need" for a RESCUE would be forth coming. It could have meant signalling her to ascend, so that you could get her BC inflated, and figure out why she was so negative, and to either fix a dangerous problem, or to get the boat over and invloved in her safety.

Thoughts?

As it was said you are making many assumptions with that statement. If your going list fact list all of the facts or don't list any. Even authorities don't now exactly what went wrong.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk 2

 

[danvolker]

As it was said you are making many assumptions with that statement. If your going list fact list all of the facts or don't list any. Even authorities don't now exactly what went wrong.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk 2

I did hear the stoty from a PADI unstructor that was on the boat....but yes, much is likely to remain unknown, even after an investigation....
The one assumption unlikely to change, would be that if she had been buddied up to a "real buddy", a very different outcome would have been possible , if not probable....That is, unless you believe that the standard PADI or NAUI Rescue Classes would be useless.

 

[iamrushman]

best wishes for the friends and family.....(this charter left a couple of divers on the high seas last year.)

 

[fnfalman]

---------- Post added February 25th, 2013 at 10:01 AM ----------

Yesterday a girl died on a charter boat off Miami....depth indicated was in the 30 to 40 foot range, on a boat with 40 divers ( cattleboat size group) .... ..:

• She was found with no mask or bc on, but still wearing weightbelt..on the bottom
• Apparently she was not diving with a buddy, as no one knew she had a problem, no one saw her struggling and drowning.
• Apparently she had insufficient skills to either do a mask clear, or to drop her own weight belt when it was critical for her to do so.
• It might also be apparent that she had no bouyancy skills, or none of this should have been possible....
• A skilled diver...like a good Cave Diver, or a good Dive Instructor, or a good DM, or just a GOOD Diver with only a basic cert--SHOULD HAVE seen a dangerously underskilled and over-tasked diver in the water, and decided to INTERVENE.

INTERVENE "could mean" just keep an eye on her in case she needed help.....it could mean buddy up with her because of your certainty that the "need" for a RESCUE would be forth coming. It could have meant signalling her to ascend, so that you could get her BC inflated, and figure out why she was so negative, and to either fix a dangerous problem, or to get the boat over and invloved in her safety.

Thoughts?

What exactly do you mean by "intervene"? Would you approach her and maybe signaled her/write on a slate that you don't think she should be in the water? Then if she were to ignore you, are you going to drag her up to the surface and back to the boat?

What if you approached her asking to be a buddy and she didn't want you to? What are you going to do? Follow her along and wait to rescue her?

I'm sorry, but people are supposedly trained divers and they can speak up if they want your help.

 

[danvolker]

She had no buoyancy at the surface because she had removed her bcd. You are making a lot of assumptions, so I'll make some too. Since she was also without her mask, I'll assume she'd made it to the surface and in anticipation of boarding, had removed her bc, mask and meant to be waiting her turn to hand up her gear. But because the previous times she'd been diving, it had been with integrated weights, she didn't realize her mistake until it was too late.

If you read DAN's report, look at the percentage of deaths wherein those were found still wearing their weight belts.

I don't know where you dive ( Canada maybe ) , but in South Florida, no one removes the mask or BC while in some sort of "line" to board the boat.
Also, it is very atypical behavior for any divers to hand up a bc to the boat crew---and if such a thing was going to occur, it would have needed to be discussed prior to the dive, and the crew member would have to have been waiting for this and "ready" for it--AND, the "buddy" would have known about this, along with the crew member( i.e, we would now know this).

Ultimately, when she surfaced, her buddy should have maintained awareness of her.....and did not..... My assumption will be it was either a "Same ocean buddy", meaning really no buddy at all.....Or, another low skilled or novice diver, meaning no real buddy because two novices paired together are not really a "buddy" team--neither is self reliant--both are totally dependant, making them non-functional as a buddy team.
Or...and hopefully this is not the case, a skilled buddy that just figured all was OK at the surface, and stopped paying attention to the buddy. This would be horifying for this person now, so let's hope it was not the case...in the other to possibilities I suggested, you could not blame the accident on them, due to the nature of the relationship....

---------- Post added February 25th, 2013 at 02:08 PM ----------


---------- Post added February 25th, 2013 at 10:01 AM ----------

What exactly do you mean by "intervene"? Would you approach her and maybe signaled her/write on a slate that you don't think she should be in the water? Then if she were to ignore you, are you going to drag her up to the surface and back to the boat?

What if you approached her asking to be a buddy and she didn't want you to? What are you going to do? Follow her along and wait to rescue her?

I'm sorry, but people are supposedly trained divers and they can speak up if they want your help.

INTERVENE "could mean" just keep an eye on her in case she needed help.....In fact, I have encountered scenarios like this on charter dives several times, where I decided I would need to watch the unsafe diver, just in case.....on the surface interval I would share my concerns with the DM, for it to be their responsibility on the 2nd dive.... ( I don't do DM work, the DM shows up here on my profile, apparently because I got the cert--but I don't use it to be a working DM)

 

[Jim Lapenta]

I did hear the stoty from a PADI unstructor that was on the boat....but yes, much is likely to remain unknown, even after an investigation....
The one assumption unlikely to change, would be that if she had been buddied up to a "real buddy", a very different outcome would have been possible , if not probable....That is, unless you believe that the standard PADI or NAUI Rescue Classes would be useless.

Had it been a NAUI OW diver as her buddy the outcome could have been different. That type of rescue-panicked diver at the surface requiring help to drop weights - is a basic open water class skill.

Sent from my DROID X2 using Tapatalk 2

 

[danvolker]

I would also need to add into this equation, that an advanced diver buddied to a new novice of low skill level( ie., average new certified diver) is NOT diving with a buddy in any reality we live in...they are diving with a dependent diver. The novice is diving with a buddy, but is not expected to be self reliant. I would say this in a statistical sense--- I personally know instructors of several different agency affiliations, that can certify an OW student, and on day one of their diving with the new cert, they are competent to be a buddy---the issue I am getting at with this post, is the large number that we know get "churned out" that are not going to be competent in the dive environments they may attempt in their first dozen or 2 dozen dives--not competent meaning not self reliant, but instead dependent.

---------- Post added February 25th, 2013 at 02:52 PM ----------

Had it been a NAUI OW diver as her buddy the outcome could have been different. That type of rescue-panicked diver at the surface requiring help to drop weights - is a basic open water class skill.

Sent from my DROID X2 using Tapatalk 2

Jim, I totally agree with you !!!